5 hits and 5 misses on the campaign trail, Sep. 8-14

1. OBAMA: Being presidential first, political second. Yes, Obama the candidate fired back at Romney’s Libya attack. But he did so in a very measured way that was correctly subordinated to the work of Obama the President. The authority, sorrow and resolve that he projected on the issue seemed to set a perfect tone – and in itself provided a cool contrast to the GOP candidate’s rash criticism. When he did get around to addressing Mitt’s remarks, he sounded like a professor talking about an erring freshman: “Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.” Yes, he does.

2. ROMNEY: Demagogus interruptus. On Sunday, which seems like an eon before the Libya tragedy, we heard a softer, more nuanced Mitt. For once declining to pander to his base, he actually praised parts of the Affordable Care Act – the parts, of course, that people like, and the parts that have to be paid for by the parts people don’t like – but it was a welcome dialing-down of the rhetoric. Then – glory be – he blamed Republicans as well as Democrats for supporting automatically generated cuts in defense spending to balance the budget. Both Democrats and Republicans responsible for gridlock? Why, that kind of loose talk, if it became accepted by both sides, is the sort of thing that could cause actual progress to break out.

3. ROMNEY: A despeerately needed ‘Thank you.” In a similar piece of fence-mending – but probably far more important, both politically and substantively – Romney tried to atone for his Afghanistan-free acceptance speech by … another radical concept … actually thanking America’s armed forces for their hard work, bravery and sacrifice. It needed to be done, and he did it.

4. OBAMA. Bringing home the bacon. It’s one thing to hand-wring over Citizens United and mutter about all the right-wing super-PACs. But that won’t get the job done. Obama has dramatically stepped up fund-raising, as recent numbers show. He actually took more in than Romney did in August, for the first time in three months, and his post-convention efforts are looking stout.

5. ROMNEY: The Bain Plane? No, maybe not. One of Candidate Romney’s jobs is to show a little humanity, right? Rare success here. In announcing a fund-raising scheme that involves giving away trips on the Romney campaign plane, nicknamed “Hair Force One” by Ann Romney in honor of her husband’s killer coif, Romney told potential donors, “Who knows, maybe you and I will come up with a better name for the campaign plane.” My favorite plane name suggested in the Twitterverse: @kagrox (David Waldman): “The Enola Anti-Gay.”

5 misses:

1, 2 and 3. ROMNEY: Ready, aim, insert foot. The inaccurate and ill-advised rush to politicize the tragedy in Libya is widely seen as a gaffe that could be a campaign-killer. Talk about your unforced errors. We’ve seen Mitt blow it in London, in Poland, and in Israel, but this was several orders of magnitude more serious. Many Republicans and Romney allies shied from the criticism like it was radioactive, which it was. Jon Huntsman, a Republican who actually knows something about foreign policy as a former Ambassador to China, and who has endorsed Romney, said it very well Friday: “This was an opportunity to instruct, to elucidate, to educate, to talk about how you put the pieces back together again in North Africa and the Middle East … not to condemn, not to criticize, not to turn it into a political event.” Nevertheless, Romney forged ahead, doubling down on his initial criticism even as he was being urged to shut his gaffe-hole on the subject. And even when he began to moderate his words, campaign surrogates kept up the attacks. Yes, when Bill Bennett read the Romney attack verbatim Friday before the Values Voters Summit, it was met with a standing ovation. So what? The reaction of the base does not reflect the political reality on this. Swing voters are swinging as we speak. In the other direction.

4. OBAMA: With friends like these… The President had a choice-of-words issue himself when he said of Egypt on Thursday, “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.” While there was doubtless some diplomatic intent within the statement, Press Secretary Jay Carney quickly tried to parse the words and do some quick repair work. Where the diplomatic intent came in: It clearly put pressure on the Morsi government to show that Egypt was indeed worthy of the label “ally.” Egypt rushed to soothe the United States, all but admitting it had erred in balancing its response to the Cairo embassy brouhaha.

5. ROMNEY: “Object” lesson? Kris Kobach, author of the Arizona immigration law and Voter-ID law advocate, also happens to be a couple of other things: A Romney adviser (as per the campaign) and the Secretary of State in Kansas. He pulled a real beaut Thursday. What could be better than suppressing Democratic Party voters? Why, removing their candidate from the Kansas ballot entirely, that’s what. The reason Kobach and his fellow Kansan GOP “Objections Board” members are considering banning the President from the ballot in the state where Obama’s mother was born? They are not convinced Obama was born in the United States. Boy, is this tired.